


The Devil's Choir

by Gabrielle_Erudessa



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blind Character, Demon, Exophilia, Exorcism, F/M, Fantasy, Human, Possession, Romance, glaistig
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2019-09-28 03:36:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17175104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gabrielle_Erudessa/pseuds/Gabrielle_Erudessa
Summary: It was just another normal night on the forest for Ian, even the humans chasing a "witch". And, as he imagined, the human being chased wasn't a witch. Rhiannon was a nun with true power gave by her Christian God, but never a witch.Ian truly intended to gave her back to her world and Church when he first saved her, but she stayed, and then it was too late.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> Hi people!
> 
> So, I wrote "The Devil's Choir" during the first semester of the year and posted it on my tumblr (https://gabriellerudessa. tumblr. com/).
> 
> The story is part of one of my original universes and the only one in english for now, but there isn't need to know the universe to understand the story. It's a very sweet story, I believe, and I loved writing it.
> 
> The Glaistig is a figure from Sccotish mythology; I tried to keep the things she do and may do, but I took some poetry liberty with the appearance and in turning the Glaistig in a species with both males and females and their own culture.
> 
> I hope you all like it! :)

The night was blessedly quiet.

Well. Maybe too quiet, he considered. The quieter, the lesser chances of human blood. Already half a month had passed since his last meal, and if nobody entered the forest soon, he would have to act desperate and enter some human village. Something he really didn’t want, not with the way non-humans were being hunted and killed so easily by the humans, even when they did nothing to provoke.

Sighing, he scratched his head and freed a firefly from the tight red curls; he watched the insect fly away before going back to his walk, thoughts that his mother and half-sister would find his struggle to survive amusing swirling in his mind.

An echo crashed against his magical perception; four of his magical alarms through the forest transmitting what had disturbed them. Voices, human voices screaming “Find the witch! Burn it!”

The word “witch” made him snort. It was probably just another sad kid with the wrong kind of nascence mark or with too much spirit. They were becoming incredible common and he was starting to run out of places to redirect them.

Well. Another kid to help, but at least this one had brought some meal with them.

 

He counted ten human men, torches on their hands while searching for the supposed witch. Before helping the kid, he would deal with them.

Arriving by their back, he let his magic and spells run free, touching the water on the earth. Mist rose from the ground, thick, almost solid. Some of the men screamed it was the witch, another one the devil, and a third one just started to run away.

He scoffed. Cowards. Just a little of mist, nothing so terrifying.

He pulled the closest man, a skin and bone kind of man, by the nape, using the other hand to cover his mouth, and again freed his magic. The human relaxed against him, and then he sank the pointed teeth on the neck, careful so nothing dropped on his green silk jacket and trousers; the clothes were ragged and old but he liked then. Soon he closed the punctures with his saliva, weaved a spell to incentive the man to return home and retreated.

Bodies and disappearances in the woods would attract unwanted attention, and he very much liked to live.

Recharged with the blood, it was time to scare off the other humans. And possible one last sip.

He pushed the shoulders back, raised the chin and stuffed the chest. Shrouded in mist, he approached other human, this time by the front. An old man capable of giving _him_ the creeps; despite this, he smiled, big and toothy enough for all the pointed teeth to show and gleam in the torch’s light.

“DEMON!” the man screamed, walking back, tripping when tried to turn and run at the same time.

That erased the smile. He wasn’t a _demon_ , for Morrigan’s sake, he was a proud native of the dimension, born in there, not outside. He was a male _Glaistig_ , hybrid with a human, he wouldn’t deny, but _Glaistig_. He not even was the kind with horns and legs of goat — like the inaccurate descriptions humans had from demons —, but the kind with horns and legs of _deer_. But in the human brains, just “horn and not-human legs” were processed. Never his dragonfly wings were noticed, which was their loss, because his wings were really things of beauty.

With the incentive of the running man, the others also started to flee, most of them with success. One, however, a big and fat man that smelled pungently of old blood and rooting flesh — probably a butcher — tripped and got one of the feett stuck between some roots.

The Glaistig left a sigh scape through the nose and walked till the man, which looked more terrified at each step he gave, trashing and probably hurting more the foot. The Glaistig stopped and focused his look on the eyes of the human, and for a second the magic flowed through the fragile contact.

It was enough for the man to relax, and a groggy expression took over his face. The non-human kneeled and, carefully, first freed the stuck foot and then let a surge of curative magic make sure there would be no wounds. Just then the Glaistig used one finger to push the head to the side and expose the neck. This time he took more blood, the energy of the liquid running through his veins and the warmth creating spikes of power in his magic.

As before, after stopping and healing the punctures, a bit of magic and the fat man was heading away from the forest.

Looked around, and a satisfied smile spread over his face. No more humans. Now, just to find and help the supposed witch.


	2. II

The Glaistig cast a tracking spell attuned to human souls, and soon he was walking through the forest, following the itch in the back of his mind that told him where to go. At some point, the smell of fresh blood flooded the air and his senses. And the electricity of raw and powerful magic licked his hoofs in a way that was at the same time pleasurable and agonizing.

Following his nose, he soon found a pool of blood, too large for his comfort. The kid had hurt themselves and lost a lot of blood on the process. Perhaps he shouldn’t have let all the humans run away…

He crouched besides the pool, touched the blood and proved it; raw power tasting like nectar and honey circled through his tongue, accelerating his heart and making the magic in him howl in frenzy, anxious to crush something, for a little instant.

The blood told him three things: it wasn’t a kid, but an adult woman, Godsworn to the Christian God, or baptized as humans said, and this woman wasn’t just human. The human was there, but the blood had magic enough for him to tell that this one would probably be indeed a witch. A witch that was bleeding in a forest in the middle of the night.

He was standing and running in two seconds.

 

First he found a walking stick, almost as tall as him, worn from use and with blood prints along it. Then he found the woman, black straight hair cut unevenly and opaque eyes, clutching her side. If he hadn’t feed sooner, the smell of blood would have let him dizzy with hunger.

A walking stick, opaque eyes. She was blind. Blind and with so much power... Bloody hell, she was a spiritual. And judging how strong the taste of the Godsworn had been, she wasn’t just baptized in the name of the Christian God. Oh, no, her power as a spiritual had been patronized by the Christian God himself. Godsworn to the same God whom gave you power, that was a rare thing. Probably the reason for all that raw power.

Now he really needed to take her from there, or soon all kinds of spirits would be there, trying to get a physical body for free. Weak as the blood loss would’ve made her, someone would be lucky enough to slip through her barriers.

“Your feet make strange sounds”, she whispered, softly and breathless, and his hearing told him that her heart was too slow. “What’s your name?”

“Ian McSighle. They are hoofs, not feet. And yours?” no point in lying, she would soon discover he wasn’t human anyway.

The Glaistig kneeled beside the human and carefully pulled her hands away. Blood soaked her… Nun habit. A nun. The men were pursuing a nun. _What had happened?_

He expulsed the thoughts and considerations and focused on the blood pouring from what seemed like a knife wound on her middle.

“Sister Rhiannon” she breathed shallowly when he touched the wound and let magic pour into it, knitting flesh together. After that, he would give her some of his blood; it would help with the lost blood and be a safeguard against infections and other things. He just hoped that the fact that he was Goddesworn to Morrigan wouldn’t make things harder for her. “You aren’t human”, she affirmed, not seeming troubled.

“No. I’m a Glaistig. And you?” the wound closed, just a faint pink scar showing in the place. Ian took her arm, bared by the torn habit, and made a puncture on the elbow’s interior. With a bite on the own wrist enough for blood to pour, he weaved a simple spell to guide his blood into her veins. And prayed that the Christian God didn’t find that heresy or something like that.

“What do you mean?”

“I can smell. You are some kind of spiritual. With which kind of beings without physical body can you interact?”

“Oh, yes. Angels and demons. I was an itinerant exorcist for the church, until the last village wasn’t glad when I told there wasn’t a demon, just a very sick person. They accused me of making pacts with demons.”

So she was what he heard the Stella Bianca called “Priestess”. Damn luck. And where, for Morrigan’s sake, where were the church’s men to protect the ones in missions, specially a nun?

Ian forced a calm exhalation through his nose. Just then he licked the puncture on the arm, his saliva closing it, and helped Sister Rhiannon to get on her feet. The nun barely reached his shoulders.

She tried to walk, and tripped on her first step. Then the Glaistig just lifted her and started walking. His cave-home would be secure and comfortable enough for her, totally protected against all kind of spirits. Then… Well. Perhaps he should think on how to return a nun to the church without being confused with a demon. It would probably be easier to contact the Stella Bianca after they went into hiding.


	3. III

Time passed. Faster than Ian noticed, and enough for a series of little things happen between them that made difficult to imagine his life again the way it was before Rhiannon was there.

She had said the third day that she didn’t want to return to the church, that she was tired of wandering and making exorcisms. At the end of that week, he lent one dress his half-sister had forgotten in her last visit and Rhiannon burned the nun clothes.

After this, he almost stopped worrying to where to take the human; she helped keep the cave-home tidy, never judged him for needing human blood, helped with the statues of wood and rock that he made and sold to other non-humans, and indulged in his silly plays around the cave complex and the forest. Ian had totally forgotten that she wasn’t safe there, being human and blind. Even her ability to interact with angels and demons didn’t mean much, since angels almost never appeared and demons weren’t exactly the kind you could trust to not try to take over your mind and soul.

Ian was cruelly reminded that she couldn’t stay indefinitely on the forest when winter was arriving and his skin started to peel off.

His next metamorphosis giving signs, soon than he was expecting. Rhiannon would be totally alone and vulnerable, since the only thing really stopping the wild animals from invading the cave was his fresh smell at the entrance. Once in the metamorphosis stasis, he would be in deep sleep for a month; within a week his smell would be weak enough for them to take a look and possible attack the priestess.

Ian didn’t want her away, not with the way he saw her focused on something not quite there when outside the cave-home’s spiritual protections, but, bloody hell, for her physical safety, he needed to take her to a village.

 

“One month. Promise?” Rhiannon asked at the border of the dirt road, both still hidden between the trees. At the end of the road was a woodcutter’s village that while they didn’t like non-humans, they also didn’t take action against them, which meant he could fetch her later without problems.

“Give or take a few days, but yes, I promise. Then… I don’t know. Perhaps introduce you to my mother and half-sister?”

Rhiannon laughed in a soft way before making silence. She reached for his hand, and the Glaistig let the fingers interlace; he observed the contrast between his dark as ebony skin and the pale freckled of hers, and something almost wild in him loved it. Whatever it was that had been growing between then, Ian knew that was still fragile and in need of work and time, both of which he hoped to do and have after the metamorphosis.

She let a sigh escape and pulled him softly in her direction, until her head lied in his chest.

“I… I love you, Ian. Don’t you dare let me here forever.”

It was his time to sigh, the free hand carefully holding her nape.

“I won’t.” he made her withdraw, just enough so he could touch their foreheads; Ian breathed deeply, the smell of power and magic, pines and honey invading his lungs. He loved her smell, loved when he was walking around the cave-home and caught bits and sniffs of it. It made the place more; her absence would make the smell weak, the cave sad and poor. “You have me, heart and soul, and I won’t abandon you.”

Rhiannon smiled, then steeped back, letting go of his hand. With the help of the tall and enchanted walking stick he had made, she reached the dirt road and went through it until she was out of sight.

Ian followed her at a distance through the woods, making sure she reached the village without problems. The Glaistig leaved only when he saw a matronly woman talk briefly with Rhiannon, soon guiding the woman to one of the wood cabins.

 

The cave-home was so silent and quiet when he arrived that something in him went anxious and wild, screaming that the place was totally wrong.

Ian told himself countless times that she was safe while descended through the cave complex, passing the storages and other room caves without function. Soon he was walking through the most labyrinthine parts of the complex, normally unused, just his memory and acute sight helping him find his way.

He chose one of the most beautiful rooms to this metamorphosis this time. A waterfall dying in a lake, little bioluminescent fishes on the water casting a gloom light on the place. There were also some bugs, spiders and scorpions, as glowing as the fishes, making a portion of the room glitter like something of a dream, and Ian promised himself that he would bring Rhiannon there even if she couldn’t see it.

He played in the border of the lake a little, the fishes nibbling his fingertips, the bugs using his wings as landing ground, and a spider dared to try to make its web using his horns as anchorage; the twin glowing balls of his immortality and magic twirling between the horns made the task nearly impossible.

A yawn torn its path through him, and Ian knew it was time. The Glaistig shook his wings carefully, just enough so the bugs let go, and walked to the furthest place from the water.

Ian took off his clothes and lied down on the cold rock, the wings tucked against him, and his breathing become slow and silent, almost non-existent. A shimmering glow appeared in spots on his skin, gradually growing until all of him was covered in the pale luminescent shine.

The glow solidified in a filmy coat, slim as a petal. Bugs soon landed on it, and scorpions walked, and spiders weaved their webs. The Glaistig never reacted.


	4. IV

The one month mark came and passed until Rhiannon was in the woodcutter’s village for almost two months.

She was going crazy.

“ _He abandoned you_ ” the whisper didn’t appear to be only in her head as Ian had explained. She almost could swear that, when the demon talked, breath come out of his mouth and made the hair next to her ear flutter, a soft breeze against her skin. Ian had said that it wasn’t possible, because demons without a physical body could not interact in this way with flesh and bone, but it was  _so real_.

“Shut up. He will come to get me. He promised.” Rhiannon answered, her fingers travelling along the walking stick the Glaistig had made her, feeling the bumps, crests and grooves, writings of their history and enchantments for guidance and physical protection.

She remembered waking up in the middle of the night for a number of days, the soft murmur of Ian’s voice and lightning of his magic caressing her skin and ears while he crafted the piece. It was a precious gift.

“ _He lied._ ”

“He didn’t. He saved me, why would he lie?”

“ _Because he was tired of you_.” The voice changed subtly in tone, became more caress and less accusation, and then there was the press of fingers on her shoulders, gradually the pressure becoming the weight of hands. “ _Why now you resist so much to what I say, sweet little flower? I just want what’s best for you._ ”

Rhiannon enclosed her fingers on the piece of wood, not really finding anything in her able to retort what the demon said.

Arms worm their way around her shoulders, and the woman felt the pressure of a body against her back and the soft puff of a warm breathing on her neck.

“ _Why so faithful of the monster, my sweet little flower?_ ” the demon asked. She felt a nose tracing her ear. She wished that he was indeed physical so she could swing the walking stick to make him back away.

“Ian isn’t a monster. He took care of me. He loves me.”

“ _Does he? I’m sorry, sweet little flower, but…_ ” Pinpricks of tooth on her neck, never enough to hurt. “ _… I’m the one whom has always been on your side, not **him**._” The voice was just a little bit angry, on edge. “ _When your parents died and the church discovered what you’re able, who kept you sane during everything they did?_ ”

“You” she whispered, not wanting to admit the truth, but doing it nonetheless.

“ _We’ve been together aaaall this time, Rhiannon._ ” One of the hands rose and the fingers intertwined between her hair, softly and caring. This time she wished he was physical so the touch could be real and not just in her mind. “ _And we will continue. I’ll take care of you, as always. Never doubt it._ ” A kiss on her hair, subtle and caring.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. Part of her, the part from before Ian, wanted to indulge in the fake touches and just let go and believe like she had all her life, believe the safety offered. The Rhiannon who had lived with Ian and learned more about what she was wanted to run and scream with her power to make the demon for whom she never had a name to go away forever, because Ian’s warnings - “ _They just want a body capable of holding all their power without rotting and dissolving into ashes_ ” - echoed on her mind.

Rhiannon prayed that Ian would return soon.

 

 

Three months, and still nothing from Ian.

“ _He was just a dream._ ” The demon whispered on her ear, a hand slowly sliding up her arm. “ _I appreciate that he saved your life, but… That was it, sweet little flower. Nothing else._ ” Then the demon did what he always did when she couldn’t sleep: he started to sing, with deep notes and throaty voice, with words she didn’t understand but that after so many years brought her peace.

It was strange. In thirty years, she had sensed angels just a very few times in very specific events, and never had had the chance to talk to them. Demons, however… She had one just for herself.

“ _We must go._ ” The demon whispered at the end of the song. “ _Soon the people here will want you gone._ ”

Rhiannon’s heart hurt with the thought, but she just knew that de demon was right. She had overstepped her welcome more than a month ago.

“But how? I… Your directions and my ability to follow them are very limited on a place like this.”

“ _I know, sweet little flower. If you let me in, we won’t have these problems._ ”

She shrunk into herself, not certain of the offer. All the possessions she had saw and ended, all that Ian had taught her… She wasn’t certain if it was wise to accept.

“Promise to leave when I ask and to not hurt the people around?”

“ _Of course I promise, sweet little flower. Of course._ ” The demon said, embracing her with strength. For a second the hug was too tight, before the demon noted her discomfort and released her.

She breathed deeply and nodded her head.

“All right. I’ll… I’ll let you in.”

Then, Rhiannon made something she never had and that she had hoped never to do: she opened her defenses and let the demon enter. Fire seared her lungs and flesh and flooded every little corner of her mind.


	5. V

Ian opened his eyes and tried to sit; a groan made way past his lips when his back popped, and everything else in his body felt stiff. By Morrigan’s sake, how he hated the feeling as if he was an old human with brittle bones that followed the awaking of the metamorphosis.

He rubbed his face and hair, trying to shake away the sleepy feeling, and felt the red curls reaching past his shoulders.

Wait.

That was more than a hand longer, comparing with the length before the metamorphosis; a lot of growing for just a month.

A feeling of dread set upon his heart. Oh, Morrigan, what if…

Fearing what he would see, Ian stretched his arms and deer legs and lowered the gaze. Stripes the color of gold, glimmering like fireflies, were set against the red pelt of his legs and the ebony skin of his arms, slim and wavy like the tendrils of a vine. Marks that declared to whomever knew what they meant that he had found a mate, would belong to just this one person and that his body was, well, ready to really procreate.

Which meant that the metamorphosis had taken at least three months, the magic and biology making sure his reproductive system was mature and healthy enough and to strengthen his muscles and magic so he could protect his offspring. Since his mate was obviously Rhiannon, a human with limitations in magic and strength compared to him, probably one month longer of metamorphosis so he could also protect his mate.

He should’ve known that the metamorphosis had arrived earlier than usual.

Ian forced himself to stand on the wobbling legs, even if it wasn’t the ideal for just having woken, but he just knew that he had took long enough, that he needed to arrive the sooner the best to the woodcutter’s village.

While walking and finding his way back through the maze of caverns, he prayed not only to Morrigan but also to the Christian God that Rhiannon was fine, that his delay hadn’t affect her as much as he thought. Even if he was almost certain that this wasn’t the case.

 

Ian broke a personal record, reaching the village in less than six hours.

Or what was left of it.

There were just the remains of the shacks and huts, black as coal, soaked wet of recent rains.

That… For Morrigan’s sake, he just knew that it was his fault. Ian tried, he really tried, to find survivors, but there were just the gnawed and rotten bodies of the villagers, at least two or three weeks old. At the middle of the ruins, he found the only trace of Rhiannon: the enchanted walking stick he had made her.

The Glaistig breathed deeply. He needed to find the Priestess and, judging the state of the woodcutter’s village, he would have to perform an exorcism, if she was still possessed. He doubted, since there were limits of how much time a live body could be occupied by a strange spirit, even a Spiritual. It was a matter not of resistance, but of energy: the possessed body of a Spiritual was simple unable of absorbing and generating energy from food while there was more than a single ruling spirit. The body would not burst in flames and rot, but wither away without energy to sustain itself.

He hoped the demon that had burned the village wasn’t strong enough to maintain a long-term possession of a Priestess.

Ian needed to find Rhiannon. Praying that the walking stick was magically intact, he closed his eyes and reached the piece with his magical senses, searching the magical imprint of Rhiannon’s blood on the wood, fueling the enchantments and giving him the piece of her he needed to cast a special compass spell attuned to her magic.

The magical imprint was there, strong as oak and deep as their feelings. Good. The compass spell wouldn’t be easy or cheap to weave, but at least he had how to cast it.

He prayed again, this time that she was still in the Britain Isles, because the ocean water definitely would cut away her magical trail.

 

Ian walked through the forest, tracking the dark energy of demons and casting purifying spells on them. The last thing he needed was the energy of some random demon inside of an animal confusing his spell just because it was on the surroundings.

He soon reached the cave-home, and feeling the press of time against his back, stormed through the place, collecting all the things he would need and headed out again.

He walked a bit, finding the place more neutral in magical terms. Just a tiny bit of magic not his or Rhiannon and the compass would err by some good hundreds of feet in guiding him, which would be totally not good.

Ian used the walking stick to draw a large circle around on the earth, binding the magical signature of the Priestess on the place, above and greater than his own signature. He carefully laid the wood on the ground and kneeled.

Needing the stronger compass possible, able to guide despite the demonic signature that would have blended with Rhiannon’s at least for a time, he used a little bag, considerable smaller than his fist, made of Cù-Sìth guts. The Fae Dog was one of the best magical trackers of the isles. Neutralizing the Cù-Sìth owns signature, he filled it with purified water.

Then he started to weave the spell, chanting and moving the tendrils of magic: two drops of his blood to powering it and a splinter of the walking stick for reference. Ian dropped both inside the bag, weaving and sewing, the magic each time more and more tight and strong and malleable just the right amount, each element carefully anchored to each other in the right way, a delicate balance.

Keeping the bag floating with his magic, he made one of the most important constituents, the thing that would keep all of that together and snap the final line of the spell: a thin braid made of his own hair, weaved with magic and skill and all of the feelings he had for Rhiannon’s.

The line of red closed the bag, enough spare so he could put it dangling on his neck, and Ian chanted and stitched the final tendrils.

And then the magical compass was ready. With a trembling breath, Ian put the little bag around his neck and stood up. His deer legs were wobbly, tired, and just then he noticed that the sun had disappeared a long time ago.

Ignoring the twinges on his muscles, he took the walking stick and broke the circle. A pull started, deep in his blood and soul and mind and heart, enticing and irresistible. Magical fatigue crept upon him, felt only when the spell started working, and Ian needed to stop for a few minutes, least he would black out.

That… Was more magic than he had ever used in a compass spell.

Horror and dread and anger roared within him, his wilder part, the part that had decided Rhiannon was his mate, almost howling. That could mean only one thing: the demon hadn’t left her body and the spell needed more magic to find the human’s magical signature.

If this metamorphosis hadn’t made him stronger… He would’ve died of lack of magic the moment he stepped out the circle.

Gloomy with this realization, Ian started to follow the pull.


	6. VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long at posting a new chapter. I totally forgot.  
> Please, fell free to demand new chapters if I take to long again. The story is totally written, I just need to remember to update it regularly.

The spell guided him through Rhiannon’s magical trail. What he found made him sick in a way he didn’t though it was possible: two more devastated villages, not a single human alive, and animal bodies. Dozens of them, from small to big, dried of their blood and baring the marks of magic made to prolong a possession.

The demon was still with her, clinging to her body, making everything it could to keep Rhiannon alive and able to host it, so he could play with mortal lives and do whatever it wanted.

The first body Ian found made him drop to his knees and cry until he felt dry inside. He wasn’t able to tell if it was for relief, because it was a sign that Rhiannon was alive, or despair, because it meant that she wasn’t strong enough to evict the demon by herself.

Then, Ian forced himself to stand again. And he kept following the pull, sometimes just by sheer stubbornness, others because he had made a promise that was broken and he needed to fix it. Most of the times it was the will… No. _Need_ to see Rhiannon’s smile again.

So he kept going, without stopping.

 

The trail eventually led him to London. Ian was almost dried up of his magic, but somehow he managed to enchant a tunic and a hat to hide his horns, wings and deer legs.

But now he was weak. So weak that he just knew that once he found Rhiannon, he wouldn’t be able to deal with the demon. Not with so many months the thing had had to sew itself into Rhiannon’s body using the animal blood and magic to keep the possession going.

The streets had too many people. Ian felt crowded, dread that he would be uncovered as a Glaistig almost making him cower and leave London. But Rhiannon was there, and for some time now, if the trail twisting and leading through the town indicated something it was this.

He wanted to cry when he saw her at a distance, sitting in the middle of a bunch of beggars, all skin and bones and wearing scraps of fabric of what once had been one of his sister’s dresses, the paleness of her skin with a sickly sheen over it, and the hair…

Someone had cropped the black strands so short that they were almost at the scalp.

After the desire to cry, the desire to hold her to him and never let go appeared.

And then she raised her head and the eyes that looked at him weren’t the lovely grey and opaque that he adored. They were of the demon, glimmering in dark orange, never going back to the opaque.

The demon was totally in control of her body.

A dark and promising smirk rolled on its lips - Ian wouldn’t dare say it was a smile from Rhiannon, not with those eyes - and he felt a tendril of magic reaching in his direction.

Pure instinct made Ian fall back, avoiding the tendril. It was too strong. He wasn’t able to fight it, but also knew that he wouldn’t have much time. The demon could decide to move at any time.

 

Ian left London and sought refuge on the closest woods. And then he broke.

He cried and screamed and punched and kicked everything close, the reality of the situation closing on him and his mind, and in the end he kneeled in front of a tree, hunched and feeling defeated.

He was dried up of magic, had used everything he had tracking Rhiannon and then making a disguise to enter London. He had walked nonstop since waking up, almost never eating or sleeping, so his physical strength had waned too. And nothing he had or could do would be enough to drive the demon out of Rhiannon’s body.

It was too strong. Not only because it had had so long into the Priestess body, and so fused it with power. That tendril had showed Ian this. The demon had already been tremendously strong before.

He simply… He didn’t know what else to do. The only person he knew that could help him had gone into hiding along with everyone else of her order. She had abandoned him, just a magical message on the winds as goodbye.

“Ian?” the voice was… Familiar. Pines in the front of the fire, wine with honey and song and laugh during fly.

The Glaistig forced himself to straighten, and… There she was. A mirage with deer horns, pale-freckled skin and red hair using an emerald-green dress of silk and velvet and a pin gleaming in silver on her breast: a five-point star with infinites on each point inside and ouroboros of two snakes.

“You can’t be real.” He whispered without thinking too much of it. The mirage threw herself into her own knees at his side and pulled him into a hug for some seconds, soon freeing him.

“Little bro, what happened with you?! What are you doing in London, it’s dangerous! And…” her voice waned, lose the strength of anger, a hand touched his face carefully, as if he was made of glass. If felt too real to be a mirage. Helena was really there. “… You’re skin and bones, Ian.” Her green-gaze lowered to the bag hanging from his neck. “Who are you tracking?”

The tears he thought had dried surfaced again and he gripped the free hand of the other Glaistig so tight that she probably would lose feeling on the fingers, but he didn’t care.

Ian used his own free hand to move the collar of the tunic, enough so she could see the glimmering gold stripes on his skin. Her breathing hesitated for a moment, before she locked eyes with him again, an unsure smile on her lips.

“You found a mate. That’s good news.”

“She’s a Priestess.” His voice almost didn’t surpass his lips, and his throat felt dry as if he had swallowed a ton of powder cinnamon. “There is… A demon in her… At least three months now, big sis. I… I don’t know what to do.”

She recoiled for a moment, and then pulled him for a tight hug and this time she didn’t let him go.

“We will find a way, little bro. I promise you.”


End file.
